


I miss the misery

by aryastark_valarmorghulis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Feels, First War with Voldemort, Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Sirius Black, Porn with Feelings, Romance, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:42:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryastark_valarmorghulis/pseuds/aryastark_valarmorghulis
Summary: During the winter of 1980, Sirius wants answers, Remus wants love and they both get everything and nothing at all.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 41
Kudos: 169





	I miss the misery

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [你好忧愁](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23873176) by [DirewolfSummer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DirewolfSummer/pseuds/DirewolfSummer)



> Huge thanks to [KittyCargo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyCargo/pseuds/KittyCargo) for the invaluable help.  
> Russian translation: [Я скучаю по страданию](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9329618)
> 
> Warnings: explicit sex between consenting adults.
> 
> Edit: now with a wonderful [cover](https://starstruck4moony.tumblr.com/post/635146777465602048/happy-birthday-arya), thanks to the lovely [Starstruck4Moony](https://starstruck4moony.tumblr.com).

Sirius doesn’t find any answers, but discovers how to wipe the questions out of his mind as he clutches Remus between his long legs, presses his fingers hard on Remus’ narrow waist, uncaring if he crests the line where pleasure verges on pain, traps them in an embrace that can’t be tight enough until Sirius forgets where he ends and Remus begins.

Remus slips inside him slowly, clumsy with inexperience – lips on his neck as soothing as the tea he brings in Sirius’ his bed the mornings he doesn’t feel like getting up since he doesn’t have Order duties. Remus’ thrusts are cautious and considerate, but tenderness isn’t what Sirius desires at this point - tenderness could break him quicker than a well-aimed curse.

Sirius wants to scratch and carve and delve into Remus’ body, to crush him, maybe add a scar of his own making, leave his signature on Remus’ skin even when they aren’t joined anymore. All he wants in return is for Remus to give it to him hard. He hurts Sirius all the time anyway, with his eloquent silences and his empty room and his disappearances; Remus should at least have the decency of hurting him when they’re fucking instead of pretending to be sweet and caring and loving – Sirius shouldn’t be fooled anymore. After all, Remus was so tenderly compliant the first time they fucked, and then he disappeared for two days. Sirius shouldn't be fooled anymore.

It all started like another of their endless arguments, Remus sighing and tired and so bloody patronizing. “We’re allowed to have lives outside of, you know...” he gestured vaguely with a spoon. “You’re allowed, too.”

It was precisely the kind of answer that made Sirius’ blood boil and forced him to be cruel, to dig his wand in where he knows it will hurt.

“Lives? What lives, a girlfriend? A boyfriend? Finally got over your _crush_?” he scoffed, laughing bitterly, enjoying the pink blossoming on Remus’ cheeks.

Remus stayed silent and turned to stir his coffee, his back stiff and hunched – he never answered the questions that mattered, the bloody coward.

Sirius knew Remus fancied him – since sixth year – and now Remus knew that Sirius knew. But then Remus talked back.

“Yes – you being an arsehole all the time really helps, so thank you,” he sipped his mug, his hands shaky, his voice pained. 

The possibility of Remus not wanting him anymore stunned him like a spell right to the chest, turning words into ash in his mouth. The earth might shift on his axis and days turn into endless nights but Remus – Remus must want him.

So Sirius rushed to him and kissed him on the mouth – not like that time at Prong’s birthday, when Remus was drunk and sad and Sirius was drunk and happy – but with purpose, tasting his lips, biting until he tasted the metallic tang of blood, too. They didn’t even strip that first time, they only unfastened and lowered their trousers just enough. Remus hid his face in the crook of his neck, clutching a handful of his jumper, all sweet surrendering, and Sirius was wrong in letting him kiss his mouth and eyelids, he was wrong in clutching him and stroking the nape of his neck, he was wrong in whispering soothing nonsense in his ears.

Maybe the heart craves love more than it does truth.

His left leg aches, his bent knee pushing into the itchy backrest of the couch, calf pressed against Remus’ arse, but it’s nothing, nothing at all. The world narrows to the wonderfully dirty music of skin slapping skin, blurs out of focus until it fades to bright impressions of colour: the strand of grey at Remus’ temple, lovingly discovered by Sirius’ fingers, dark eyes pleading with unsaid apologies and violet circles under them speaking of secrets, a splotch of red on flushed cheeks, a sprinkle of freckles.

He closes his eyes and urges Remus to fuck him deeper, faster, whispers filthy encouragements that make Remus’ flush spread down his cheeks to his neck and chest, until all of him is burning skin under Sirius’ hands. Remus complies, bollocks slapping against Sirius’ arse cheeks, close enough to almost – almost but never quite – ward off all the distance between them. _That’s_ how Sirius wants them, tangled up, pushing against each other, inside each other. He knows, he _knows_ that Remus longs to hug and kiss him, to cuddle and rock sweetly until they can sink together into a quiet orgasm, but that, _that_ Sirius cannot take.

Hunger compels Sirius to _feel_ with his body, until everything sharpens to the press of lips on lips, the caress of rough fingertips, the scarred, uneven skin under his own palms, the hard cock inside him, nothing else in the world but a hunger that grows instead of subsiding. Remus’ body has cravings, too, but maybe his heart does more.

Hearts beat only to be broken, though, even more so in war, so Sirius might as well withdraw his own before it’s too late.

(It is only when Sirius gets drunk that he allows himself to admit that it’s already too late.)

When Remus arrived home earlier that afternoon, he’d locked the door behind him with a spell and said “Hullo” as if he hadn’t been away for two days without a fucking word, or letter, or Patronus – nothing. Sirius had been waiting for him on the couch – knees folded, fingers wrapped around his wand (he’d started sleeping with it), biting at his fingernails, hair unwashed, stomach empty. Remus started to putter around the kitchen, spreading jam on toast like it was just another afternoon. The _nerve_. Sirius should have said _you’re an arsehole, lying to me, keeping secrets, turning my Moony into a stranger, tell me what’s going on, I can help, let me help._

In hindsight, Sirius should have played his cards better, he understands it only now: he’d demanded answers but asked the wrong questions. He’d self-righteously thought one _ought_ to know where the fuck one’s _friend_ had been after disappearing for the last two days – not because he was a bloody distrusting prick but because there’s a war on. Nobody except James (who’s in hiding and knows nothing) tells Sirius anything. Not Moody, not Dumbledore, and now he’s being kept in the dark by Remus, too. Not knowing where he was or whom he was with burned through Sirius’ patience like a fire, slowly but inevitably consuming an old tree, the sap that Sirius thought was at the core of their friendship leaking down the trunk. 

Remus could’ve been dead, for all he knew. Sirius needs to watch Moony cooking horrible eggs, watch him carefully saving every Sickle. He needs Remus to brush his teeth at the sink while Sirius pees because privacy isn’t necessary between them, needs Remus to help him with crosswords and to shoot curses at his right. Sirius needs Remus to count the dead with him each evening, to whisper their well-known names, taking turns drinking straight from the bottle. Doing this all alone, even just for two days, is a half-life.

And no, he wasn’t angry out of jealousy. Remus, with his innate talent for deflection, had the nerve to suggest it and tried to brush it off as if Sirius’ concern was a just sex-related quarrel. And fine, maybe Sirius _is_ jealous, but at this point who Remus is fucking means nothing as long as he keeps shagging Sirius, but the gulf of lies that is stretching out between them means everything.

After some one-sided yelling, a couple of dirty glasses left in the sink exploded (Sirius isn’t proud of how volatile and aggressive his magic is becoming) and Remus put on the kettle, acting, as usual, as the mature one, forgiving Sirius’ outbursts of anger from the heights of his compassion. Remus dodged answering his questions with false patience and condescension, as if Sirius was making unreasonable demands in asking him where he went all day. All night, too. 

Sirius imagined throwing his scalding cup in Remus’ face - and then Remus’ mug exploded for real. Remus jumped and hissed, a wet patch spreading down the front of his jumper, broken shards of ceramic landing on the carpet. Sirius leapt to his feet and grabbed Remus’ hands to check if he was cut or burned.

Remus didn’t recoil from Sirius’ touch. “I’m alright,” he said.  
Sirius opened his mouth to apologize for his outburst of anger, but found out he didn’t want to be the only one begging pardon, so he leaned forward and kissed Remus instead. He bit hard on Remus’ lips, felt vindicated to hear a hint of pain in Remus’ surprised yelp. After Sirius released him, Remus stripped obediently, in his usual self-conscious way, gaze lowered, and Sirius demanded Remus to fuck him, just to watch him stop being a polite, mild liar for once and take Sirius’ body if he truly wanted it.

It’s all that Sirius could offer at this point.

Remus sighs – so bloody quiet even when he fucks – and ducks his head, lips light on Sirius’, his tongue sweet, eyes wide and still watching him like the first time they kissed a year ago in Prongs' garden, as if Sirius is a sudden miraculous apparition. Remus’ thrusts become uneven and shallow, and he’s shaking, his lips shiny, skin hot and sweaty and pliant between Sirius’ palms.

Sirius considers being cruel ambushing Remus now that he’s about to come, just to see if he can catch him unaware and surprise him into confessing – but confessing what, Sirius isn’t sure. _Tell me where you’ve been, tell me if you love me, tell me why Fabian said you were in Knockturn Alley last week,_ _tell me something true._

Remus snaps his hips once, twice, whimpers and then comes, trembling in Sirius’ arms until Sirius pushes him away. Sirius wants to come, not cuddle, so he stands on the threadbare carpet, legs apart, hard prick in one hand, the other grabbing a fistful of Remus’ ruffled hair.

Remus gets the hint and blinks once before bending his neck. He sucks Sirius’ cock sitting on the couch, lets Sirius fuck his mouth and tug hard at his hair. He gags. It’s messy and rough and so, so, hot that Sirius thinks he might burst and snap, like a twig on fire. He wipes away a tear from the crinkled corner of Remus’ eye with his thumb and comes into his mouth, intoxicated by so much docility.

Remus can’t swallow it all and it dribbles down his lips and chin, a mess of spunk and sweat and spit, but he wipes himself with the back of his hand and looks up at Sirius, eyes huge and tender.

“Good?” he asks, voice rough, breathless. Anyone who doesn’t know Remus well wouldn’t pick up the hint of self-doubt, but Sirius does, and for a horrible split-second he almost replies with something cruel like _between Poor and Acceptable_ but is immediately ashamed of the thought.

“Good,” Sirius answers, but that’s not the truth either. The truth would be _you’re the best I’ve ever had, I want to have sex with you only, you’re ruining every other fuck for me, you’re ruining so many things, Moony, tell me the fucking truth._

Remus smiles, almost shy, then slowly, averting his eyes, lowers his head to rest his cheek against Sirius’ thigh. He’s lying still, not kissing Sirius’ skin, not cuddling, not speaking, just calming his breath, as if bracing himself for rejection.  
Remus would patiently wait for Sirius to mellow, to show some tenderness, that much he knows. That's who Remus is, he waits on the riverbanks and watches things – either good or bad, either crushes or fights – to flow and pass until they’re beyond him. _He’ll outlive us all_ , Sirius thinks. 

There’s nothing that Sirius trusts himself to say. He lets Remus rest for a while, strokes his hair once, and then steps back.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://aryastark-valarmorghulis.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
